Alone

Wendell kicked a loose cola can down the deserted street. At this quiet hour it made a long and audible rattle. It was a long walk back to campus from Georgia's place. After an hour, he couldn't stand laying in bed next to Georgia. He'd simply hit her with the ray too and dressed both her and Harriet up on the worn sofa in the living room. He'd brought his bag with him and just hoped that Georgia could chalk up the evening's events to pleasant dreams.

"I love you"

That reverberated around in his head louder than the aluminum can had. He felt sick.

Why do I feel so bad about that? Who cares? None of the other stuff hit me like that.

He passed beneath a streetlamp that hummed loudly. He was freezing and jammed his hands into his coat pockets.

I wanted a new experience, and I got it alright. Miserable... Just nagging at me. What is it about that specifically?

He trudged down the sidewalk. Leaves rattled by in the wind as he passed some quiet houses and had to stop at a crosswalk. He waited for the light to change.

Maybe I should just smash the ray or chuck it into the river? Honestly, considering I have no idea how the thing works, smashing it is probably a bad idea.

When the signal changed, he started making his was across the street. He passed by a junky pawn shop, a McDonald's, and some generic multi- storey buildings.

Ehh... I couldn't ditch the thing. Not now anyway. But why the hell did that bug me so much? Just the way she said it and the way she looked at me... looked at Harriet.

Wendell was staring at his own faint reflection in the side of LJ's Diner. He was standing there, alone on the street. His glasses were still held together by tape. For the first time ever in his life, Wendell felt that his shoulders were too broad and his hips were too narrow.

Oh... is that it? Nobody will ever actually look at me like Georgia does at Harriet, will they? They won't look at me like they do Stacy or Marcie either... Is that really what I'm after?

"What are you doing out here so late?"

Wendell snapped into focus to see Guy Hamm walking by. He was in a long jacket and going into LJ's. He stared at Wendell expectantly.

Oh jeez.

--

Guy sat across from Wendell in the booth. He had apparently been out on a date that had gone wrong after he'd made some jokes about the south that went over poorly with his Alabama-born date. He'd been insistent that Wendell catch up with him over coffee.

"So, where the hell were you on Halloween?" Guy was putting sugar in his coffee.

Oh yeah. He has no idea I went to that.

"Uh. Sick. Well I dunno. Truth is, things have been weird the past couple of days."

"Oh yeah?" Guy tested his coffee and it was clearly still too hot. "How so?"

"Honestly?"

"Of course."

"Guy," Wendell stared into his coffee, the creamer swirled about faintly, "in the past... 48 hours or so, I feel like I've become dangerously amoral, completely reckless, and totally unrestrained sexually."

Guy raised his eyebrows and dumped another creamer into his coffee. "Wendell," he discarded the empty creamer, "all that says to me..." he picked up his coffee to taste it once more, "is that you lost your virginity. So, how was it?"

Wendell couldn't help but laugh. "Wha-well it was..." He thought about his brief moment with Stacy. "It was shorter than I'd hoped."

"Yeah," Guy sipped his coffee, "mine too. So, what happened? What's got you so upset?"

"Well... I just sorta did... a lot of stuff I wouldn't normally have done." Wendell took a sip of his own coffee. It tasted cheap.

"What? Like gay stuff? No-hey I'm not judging! Benny's gay, you know that? Don't see me avoiding that guy."

"Really Benny?"

"100% not into women. He will tell you himself if you ask."

"Hmm," Wendell pondered this for a moment. "Honestly, I'm not really sure. I just did some things that made me think. I'm definitely attracted to women, but..."

"But what?"

Wendell shifted in his seat. "Let me ask you a hypothetical: if you could..." He struggled to get the words out, " would you be... a... woman... for a day?"

"Whew, boy," Guy took a big gulp of his coffee; he grimaced slightly. "That is a big can o' worms."

"And?"

"And," Guy said, "I dunno. Just whatever. I read a little bit about sexuality in psych last semester. It kind of freaked me out honestly. Didn't wanna think about it too much. Is this what's bothering you?"

"Why did it freak you out?"

"I dunno," the waitress passed by and Guy looked at her behind. "What if I liked it more? What if I hated being treated the same way I treat women? Would I start getting..." he said this part quietly, "turned on by men?" He shifted in his seat. "Those are some heavy, life-redefining questions that I think I'm comfortable not having answers to."

"Hmm," Wendell took a big gulp of his coffee and then looked into it. "Guy, thanks for talking to me."

Guy poured more sugar into his own coffee. "Sure man. Hey, everything usually works out in the end, so don't worry about it. So," he took another swig of coffee, this time it was to his liking, "you gonna be going home for thanksgiving? No more of this weird talk."

For the next half hour, give or take, Wendell and Guy talked at length of idle things. For a brief moment, things were back to normal.